PR relationships in Hollywood: what is bearding?

Hollywood is not exactly romantic. It can be, of course, but in general, I have the impression that there are mainly a lot of secrets, everyone is kind of doing each other, and there is hardly any room for romance. So no matter how romantic Leo is as Jack in Titanic, in real life he only runs off with models who are in their twenties. Ryan Gosling is the same; he’s not going to make furniture or houses for you like in The Notebook. It makes sense, the movies are just super romantic but the real characters are not.

And the relationships in Hollywood also don’t seem as glamorous and especially sincere as they come across in the media. Many relationships are said to be completely fabricated. Because it’s good for publicity, for example, if both stars are in a movie together, or because one of the two actually prefers the other gender and doesn’t want to come out about it.

That last concept is called ‘bearding’ and I find it quite fascinating. Often, it’s even orchestrated by the management. Because having a relationship would make a person desirable and is good for publicity, so… Win-win? And if a man is into men, that makes — according to the Hollywood bosses — someone less desirable and they obviously don’t want that. Yes, Hollywood is still quite narrow-minded as you can see.

And oh boy, that whole bearding is quite a discussion point on the internet. I seriously think there isn’t a single celebrity who isn’t mentioned. This website even created a whole ranking of the most famous cases when it comes to bearding. Fascinating. But because I also enjoy a gossip from time to time, I’ll list some cases here. Disclaimer: nothing here is proven or admitted, but the rumors are quite persistent. That’s exactly what they remain: rumors.

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes
I seriously believe this one — also that their contract stated that a marriage and a child would come, because a year ago it became known that Tom Cruise was scouting for a new girlfriend. As in: people were holding a sort of job interviews for who his new girlfriend would be for the press. Unfortunately, one of the applicants spilled the beans (for them, not unfortunately for us). If you want to dive even deeper into the rumors, many people are convinced that Tom is actually into men.

Bradley Cooper and Irina Shayk
There are a lot of stories online from people who know people (yes exactly, never first-hand experiences) who supposedly spent a wild night with Bradley Cooper. All men by the way, but that would be bad for his image and that’s why Irina Shayk came into the picture. She was no stranger to bearding: she did it before for Cristiano Ronaldo, who according to the same rumors is also into men.

Taylor Swift with… Everyone
The Queen of PR Relationships seems to be TSwift. Her ‘relationship’ with Tom Hiddleston was so exaggerated that no one believed it, but also the relationships with Harry Styles, Calvin Harris, and Joe Jonas would all be fake. Well, all for the fame, right? And yes, there are also rumors about her being into women.

Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart
Well, I seriously believe this one too: fans went crazy when this movie couple also got into a relationship in real life. They both didn’t look particularly happy and clearly had little interest in the whole movie, but they took that for granted. I think no one hates the Twilight movies as much as Robert himself. HAHA.

Vanessa Hudgens and Zac Efron
The High School Musical stars were said to just be friends and nothing more, but yeah… You don’t sell cinema tickets with that, of course. So this on-screen couple was also bombarded as real-life love.

Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield
They also played lovers on screen and then got into a relationship during the Spiderman shoots. A great boost for publicity, of course. Then the movie was finished and they broke up, but then they got back together when both films needed more publicity due to a potential Oscar nomination. Well, enough evidence for people to label their relationship as ‘fake’.

Camilla Cabello and Shawn Mendes
Well, to be honest, I also believe this one after they were spotted giving each other the weirdest tongue kiss ever. That looked so awkward, I must say. But well, they have been together for quite a while now. Still, I find it a strange couple: last week they were spotted outside together while both walking down the street with their eyes closed?

Steve-O and Nicole Richie
Digging very deep into your memory, I didn’t even know this one — but I included it because Steve-O himself admitted that this was fake and completely for publicity.